


Unspoken, Unsaid, Unsung

by sorawings



Category: Almost Human
Genre: AI issues, Angst, Case Fic, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Sex Trafficking, mostly just John being a phobic twat, prejudice issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-07 09:54:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5452463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorawings/pseuds/sorawings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John can't be in love with Dorian. He just can't. Dorian's a synthetic. He's not even a real person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for [gowashthelights](http://www.gowashthelights.tumblr.com). She's been an amazing friend and she got me hooked on Almost Human in the first place.

For reasons that make no sense, John never seems to remember that Dorian notices everything. You would think, given that Dorian is a synthetic with amazing computational power and far too much curiosity for his own good, John would find this hard to forget, especially since Dorian likes to be nosey about John’s life – that, of course, was a given from day one. But, alas, John still had managed to forget, or perhaps (probably) just never realized, how much Dorian noticed about him.

It is funny really, John would think in retrospect, given that for weeks all that has been in his head is the question of why _he_ notices everything about _Dorian_. He doesn’t understand why he is so caught up in this; he’s been distracted and spacey. John keeps missing what Dorian says to him because the littlest things will suddenly cause John to become consumed by thoughts of just how much work went into Dorian’s eyes. It is disgustingly romantic – but then again, John has openly admitted to being an old-school romantic. So sue him.

Not that he is romantic about Dorian. He isn’t. Not in that way. He knows that noticing these small details seems damning, but it is purely fascination. Wait, no, that sounds wrong. Dorian is fascinating, sure, but goddammit, John is not enamored with him. He just isn’t oblivious to the fact that, objectively, Dorian is a fine specimen of a synthetic. Aesthetically. Not sexually. (One might want to argue that his boner that morning begged to differ, but he would deny it outright.)

Before this fascination, words flowed easily and freely between him and Dorian, but now neither of them seems to know what to say. John is – well, he doesn’t know what he is – and Dorian has picked up on it. So, instead of amiable banter, there is a silence that stretches between them. It threatens to put cracks in the hull of their partnership. It is making the structure of _Them_ groan under this new tension.

If John ended the silence, what would he even say?

 _I can’t stop noticing your eyes_ , maybe? Or,  _I constantly notice how natural your blinking is, especially when you’re expressing or emphasizing an emotion,_ John could say, but he wouldn’t. It’s weird. It doesn’t make sense. 

 _I think about you constantly_. Nope, definitely not. John doesn’t want Dorian to get the wrong idea. ‘Cause whatever this is its not… that.

He doesn’t know how to explain, how to convey the thoughts circling in his head. His mind is a whirlwind of questions and answers and _DorianDorianDorian_.

John doesn’t know how to make Dorian understand that he managed to do what none of the other billions of people in the universe could. Dorian has finally made everything feel real again. He has made John feel like there is a reason to get out of bed every morning – like there is something John can contribute, someone he matters to, someone he wants to be with.

He doesn’t know why it is so important for Dorian to understand that, but it is.

He is utterly out of his element. John doesn’t _do_ feelings. He ignores them. Not the most efficient thing in the world, sure, but he sees no point in denying it when that is practically his motto.

It’s this whole mess that finds him in a recently emptied interrogation room with Dorian looking intently at him. Asking, seemingly out of the blue,

“Does your family have a history of heart irregularities, John?”

“No…” John grumbles, not bothering to provide any more details and not really looking Dorian in the eye, hoping in vain that Dorian can take a hint.

 _Coward,_ a voice in his head accuses.

“So it’s me then.”

John jerks his head up fast and looks at Dorian, wide eyed. He does that thing where he blinks a lot in confusion and surprise and shock and _what the fuck_.

_Maybe I can play dumb?_

“It’s you that what? The answer is probably yes. Especially since I suspect the question is something like: is it me who’s likely to cause a heart murmur by inducing severe levels of irritation,” John retorts, but, of course, deflecting doesn’t work on Dorian.

“First off, man, that is nothing like how a heart murmur works,” Dorian rolls his eyes. “Second, I have access to your medical files, so I have looked into your family history already, but I wanted to check with you just to be sure. I know it’s a slight invasion of privacy but I wanted to try to answer my question with the least amount of drama, and that seemed like the best place to start. Recently your heartbeat has become erratic more frequently.” Dorian blushes – or whatever the android equivalent is (interesting too, because that had to be optional, but Dorian is choosing to do it anyway, meaning he is aiming for full transparency here). He continues in a rush,

“And, while I know it’s not polite to draw conclusions in these kinds of situations, I _do_ have superior senses and reasoning skills, so of course I’ve been picking up patterns, and your heartbeat has been increasing a lot when I’m near, so I thought _maybe_ it might have something to do with me. I mean, maybe it’s not me, but, given that it’s pretty consistently in correlation to me, I have that scenario down to about 2.7%.”

“ _Did you just fucking babble,”_ John asks, incredulous. Dorian just gives him the stink eye.

“Oh my god, you just fucking babbled at me,” he repeats gleefully.

“Your tendency to deflect is entirely too predictable to ever work. Answer the damn question,” Dorian growls, with a level of determination in his eyes that borders on fierceness.

“Holy shit, and now you _cursed_ at me,” John raises his eyebrows, stunned.

“Answer the question!” Dorian yells.

John takes a small step back in surprise. His head is spinning – it has been since the beginning of this conversation.

 _Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck._ How is he supposed to handle his situation wisely when he is caught off guard? He was already out of his element and now Dorian is acting out of character, which just adds a whole new level of weird to everything.

“What even is the question again?” John asks in a last ditch attempt to postpone the inevitable. His tone pleads with Dorian to take the hint. Please don’t do this to him. Don’t ask him this. Not now––  

“Is your heart beating faster because of me? Whenever I’m around you, near you, or whenever I’m in danger, is that what makes your heart rate increase?”

Well, there it is. And so delicately put, too.

John averts his eyes again.

“Yes, it is,” John admits, “but I don’t know why.”

“You’re attracted to me.” Dorian states, his tone not trying to assert or argue, not accusing, just observing a fact.

“No,” John snaps, regaining eye contact and giving Dorian a glare that could kill, if Dorian were really alive. “I’m not.”

Dorian takes a step towards John. A big step. Then they are so close, nearly chest to chest. John can immediately feel his heart betray him. It had started beating faster when this conversation began – more jitters and anxiety than anything – but Dorian wouldn’t miss that this reaction now was arousal. Not only increased heart rate, but dilated pupils, minor increase in core body temperature, his gaze hovering to all the wrong – _right_ – places: lips, neck, collar bones . . .

“You are,” Dorian repeats. Again, it is fact.

But John refuses it. John will _never_ fall in love with a fucking robot. It would just be a lie.

He doesn’t think he said his thought aloud but he must have because Dorian’s eyes go wide as saucers and he looks betrayed. John feels like he just shit-kicked a puppy, but it’s too late now. Dorian just turns and flees from the interrogation room.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> plot happens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry my updates take approximately the length of a glacial age! I'm off college this semester and working through Lyme disease so my schedule is really irregular, so please bear with me! I promise not to orphan this fic!

John wakes up the next morning to the mother of all hangovers. He angrily puts a pillow over his face to shield his eyes from the sun’s death rays, and lets out a frustrated sound.

He gets up to take a leak and curses. He’d forgotten about the glass shards of what once was a whiskey bottle on the floor.

He remembers last night, only wishes he didn’t. He just want’s to forget last night ever happened - all  of it - but it seems drinking himself into a stupor only blacks out memories that take place while drunk, not before. John has the crestfallen look on Dorian’s face as his new mental wallpaper. Over and over John sees the betrayal in Dorian’s eyes as he yells, “I will  _ never  _ fall in love with a fucking robot. It would just be a lie.”

John sits back on his bed and groans. His prosthetic is across the room and his good leg is now bleeding at the sole because of its disagreement with the glass shards on the floor. Just great. He curses again for good measure as he pulls a small glass shard out the ball of his foot.

John ends up having to hop awkwardly over to his prosthetic on his injured foot, leaving bloody marks on the floor which he then has to clean up along with the explosion of glass and whiskey on his floor. His wall has a new stain on it, and some cracks in the paint, from where John threw his whiskey at it, but John decides fuck it,  _ the building manager can suck my ass _ . He doesn’t see how this morning could get any worse, except now he’s going to be late to work and Dorian will think it was because John was putting work off after what happened last night. Which he isn’t. (He is.)

But there’s no way John can ditch, no matter how much he really, really wants to.

~o~

Three hours later, John is about to lose his fucking mind.

He doesn’t understand it – Dorian is acting completely normal, utterly and totally fucking normal. There is only the tiniest whisper of difference in his demeanor, some intangible thing. Dorian may be faking normal but that’s just it, it’s all fake. John gets it, he betrayed Dorian’s trust, but what the fuck was going on in that mandroid head of his? If John were in Dorian’s shoes he would have decked himself by now, and with that thought John only feels worse.

When he picked up Dorian for work, John had prepared himself for a number of possible scenarios – righteous anger, disgust, disdain, apathy, and even deep hurt – but John never expected that there would be almost no change at all. Dorian just got in John’s car with the same goofy smile and same stupidly bright eyes and started making small talk and complaining about the fact that he was late. The whole morning has been like that. It has been so disturbingly normal that John is seconds away from stress-exploding.

With perfect timing, Sandra calls John and Dorian into her office to investigate a new case.

~o~

“Come in,” Sandra says from inside her office.

Dorian opens the door and nods at John to go in first. Fucking irritating, unmoved asshole.

“Sit down,” she tells them both when the door is closed. She gets up and changes the settings on the walls of her office so that they have total privacy. John is tempted to raise his eyebrows at the gesture, but he can tell Sandra is not in the mood for any sass right about now.

When Sandra is back behind her desk, she turns to them,

“We have a lead on Anna Moore’s whereabouts.”

John suddenly hears nothing but ringing in his ears.

“What’s the lead? And why didn’t you tell me you were looking into her case? Shit, Sandra, this is a huge fucking deal and you had me doing low level murders and B&Es?” John growls.

“Compose yourself, John. This is not a good time to get worked up,” Sandra snaps then she sighs,

“Valerie was looking into a human trafficking ring when she found our lead. She had discovered that this ring brands their captives much in the way that inSyndicate does.” Sandra pulls up a picture of the tattoo they had found on every inSyndicate member so far. “This is the inSyndicate tattoo, and this,” Sandra pulls up another picture, “is the tattoo of those who were branded as ‘property’ of this trafficking ring.”

The second picture was of a tattoo on the back of a young girl’s neck. It was just a long black line from the base of the girl’s neck to her hairline. John realizes where Sandra was going with this instantly,

“So this tattoo fits into the inSyndicate tattoo. They are both related, or at least the odds say they’re related. But this doesn’t make sense. How could captives of this ring go from being human slaves to being members of inSyndicate?” John wonders aloud.

“That’s the real question,” Sandra intones. “While we now know of these brand markers, we still don’t have enough information for our investigation to get very far. I’ve told Valerie that both of you will be helping on the human trafficking case, and I told her that she is to help you two in searching for inSyndicate. I’ve brought her up to speed on everything, but she’s the only other one, John. So I still need you to keep this between us. And Dorian, the same goes to you. Don’t let word out that you two are investigating inSyndicate.”

“Yes, ma’am” Dorian nods.

~o~

Valerie is waiting for them when they leave Sandra’s office. She’s sitting at her desk but she looks at them expectantly as they approach her. Then she grins,

“Looks like you guys are saddled with me.”

John tries to notice the ways her eyes hold silent laughter, but instead he can’t help but think that they aren’t bright enough – not blue enough.

John grits his teeth.

“So catch us up, Val. What is there to know about yet-to-be-named trafficking ring?”

He can feel Dorian’s analytic gaze on his back. He ignores it and listens to Valerie answer his question.

“So far we have a lot of dead escapees. Looks like this group means business with its ‘property’. So far it seems like they’ve managed to kill every escapee, but one, that we know of. That’s the biggest lead we have right now. The girl’s name is Jade. We found the ring’s frequency a week ago. Of course, it was all coded, but one of our senior decoders managed to crack the code. It looks like they change frequency pretty often because yesterday was the last time they used that frequency. Still, we have enough for a good lead. Seems that this girl, Jade, is a real problem child. She’s tried to escape many times before, and she’s often riled up her fellow captives to cause trouble for the ring. They’re desperate to catch her, which means they’re being sloppy – or as close to sloppy as inSyndicate ever gets. We don’t know where specifically she is but she has been traced to somewhere in the Asian district underground. We are trying to find her before InSyndicate does but we’ve had no real luck so far. We’ve intercepted some communication within the underworld – our communications expert for this case is really, very good – and learned that Ruby Mah has a strong hatred for InSyndicate. Looks like the two are big enemies. So the next step is to find him and see if he can help us find Jade.”

“Ruby Mah. Where have I heard that name before?” John says.

“Your first case coming back,” Valerie smiles. “He was the gang leader incriminated in that armed robbery. Looks like Khmer Black wasn’t just a random patsy. Khmer Black and InSyndicate have been enemies for a long time.”

“So where can we find him?” John asks.

“He runs an illegal gambling ring under a noodle joint. It’s under Nom Bahn Chok Hang Kahve. A mouthful, I know, but here is what the name looks like in characters. You should be able to find it pretty close to you guys’ favorite noodle joint, they always seem to group together.” Valerie hands him a piece of paper that, to him, looks like nothing but a whole bunch of scribbles.

“I can read khmer, so don’t worry about that John,” Dorian says, nearly making John jump out of his skin. Dorian had been so quiet John had practically forgotten he was there.

“No slugs this time,” John jokes, and for a second everything is good between him and Dorian, they just grin at their shared joke, but it doesn’t last long. John leaves the precinct with a heavy heart and Dorian behind him - though he seems miles away - and they head towards the Asian district.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, I know. Sorry! But I wanted to give y'all something since you've been waiting ages. When I post the next bit I'm going to add it to the end of chapter two because this post is only part of chapter 2. Seriously - really sorry I'm slow, guys!


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